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I know Raul was working on finding ways to get rid of them, and I’d signed off on all of them.
But that was before. Before I knew the sound of my name on her lips. Before I knew the feel of her skin touching mine. Before I knew I wanted her more than I wanted her shop.
My mind is preoccupied with all things Samantha when I reel my ass back in and get to work. I can’t go see her right now. I can’t let myself get distracted any more than I already have.
So instead, I check in with my restaurant manager, sign a deal to open up one of my restaurants in San Diego, answer my emails, and manage to check in with Toni’s teachers at school to see about the work that she’s missing.
Her teacher agrees that Toni needs some time to adjust, but suggests we send her to school the following Monday to get back to some normalcy and see her friends. I promise we will. It’s Friday afternoon, so we have the weekend to figure out things like… backpacks and lunch boxes or whatever the fuck.
I start to head out of the office, to Raul’s raised eyebrows. “Lemme guess,” he says, eating an olive off a toothpick at the bar. “You’re craving a smoothie?”
I shrug. “Little mid-morning pick-me-up.”
“Maybe grab a sage candle while you’re there.”
“And why would I do a thing like that?”
“Supposedly wards off negative energy, might help you keep this whole nice guy ruse going.”
I roll my eyes. “I am a nice guy.”
He snorts. “Since when?”
I decide it’s best to answer that with a one finger salute.
“Did you DoorDash any more smoothies to yourself?” I ask him as I open the door to exit.
He gives me a sheepish grin.
“Yeah, you’re a nice guy, too.”
The day doesn’t pass quickly enough. I head over and pick up Toni around lunchtime, and this time she happily orders the chicken tenders, snickering at the description of tender, white meat chicken with a tangy sweet-and-sour brown sugar and pineapple reduction sauce for dipping.
Samantha doesn’t join us, says she she’s working through things with her friends.
I’m disappointed. I’ve only known her for a short time, and already things aren’t the same without her here.
I need her help with Toni, I tell myself, despite the fact that Toni and I have a perfectly nice lunch, even making decent small talk. She takes the news that she’s going to school on Monday well.
Still, it’s better with Sam.
Everything is.
I wonder if Samantha’s made any progress finding Toni’s mother. I have a call in to Child Protective Services, but I haven’t heard back. My mind is reeling.
When we were kids, my brother, the youngest, was always in trouble. I was the oldest and held to higher expectations, one might say.
My father was the dictator of our small home, holding me and my mother to impossible standards. He was older and sick when my brother was born. He’d softened in his old age. That would’ve been a good thing for my brother, had my mother not spoiled him rotten.
But upbringing only accounts for a small part of how one turns out. My brother’s made his own choices, and the consequences of his choices sat across the table from me at lunch.
Consequences. Sounds like a shitty fucking way to think about a child.
My phone rings, and I scowl at it. I shut the ringer off.
“You don’t like your phone,” Toni says. We’re back in my office, and she’s making herself dizzy swiveling in my chair.
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Using my office chair like a merry-go-round.”
She plants her feet on the floor, and the swiveling comes to a screeching halt. “You should say please more often.”
“Please,” I say through gritted teeth, countering with, “and you should do what you’re told more often.”
She nods. “You are kind of grumpy, you know.”
“Yeah, thank you.”
She looks at me over her glasses. “It isn’t a compliment.”
“Alright, smarty-pants,” I tell her, feeling like I’m about sixty years old all of a sudden, half a breath away from calling her a little hooligan and wagging a finger. “I’ve got work to do in the restaurant. Up you get.”
“Oooh, really? I can come? Hey, do you have a walk-in refrigerator?”
“Of course.” I can’t help the note of pride in my voice.
This kid’s related to me, and she may not be mine, but she’s still family. And no one in my family’s ever set foot in any of my restaurants before.
When we get there, I check on inventory while Toni oohs and aahs over the industrial-sized food containers in the refrigerator and stock room.
“You’re telling me that entire tub is butter?”
“It is. And that rack over there? All eggs.”
“These are the biggest apples I’ve ever seen in my life!”
The girls from Samantha’s shop come in, just before the dinner rush.
